Abstract:

Time service system is very important for inverting velocity structure of underground media via traveltime tomography. Due to the lack of GPS time access, the time errors (including time service error and time keeping errors) of the Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) mainly come from the inaccuracy of internal quartz crystal oscillator, affected by external environment changes and switching and other factors. The long term practice finds that, some Chinese-made OBSs have large time deviation when recording air gun signals and natural seismic signals. In this study, 53 Chinese OBS records obtained from the crustal structure sea-land exploration experiments in Fujian and Taiwan straits in 2019 were used for time service system correction. To obtain OBS time service error, the consistency test of uninterrupted acquisition before going to the sea, as well as the sloshing caused by the transport ship during transportation, are used to correct the timing error by cross-correlation. For the time keeping error, the deviation between the calculated actual sampling frequency and the theoretical sampling frequency is corrected. The time service system is corrected comprehensively by using naturally occurred earthquakes. It has been demonstrated that the corrected OBS data can improve the accuracy of time record and reduce the error of seismic phase identification and traveltime picking. At the same time, the results of this paper provide important reference for the widespread use of domestic OBS and standardization of domestic OBS data acquisition process.

Key words: sea-land seismic experiment, Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS), OBS time correction, earthquake record.